A LOST LATIN AMERICAN LEGACY OF THE
FIRST AMERICANS: THE GARIFUNA OF
BELIZE1
C. L. Macklin
Introduction
This paper considers the Garifuna of Belize, a Central American nation with Caribbean
affinities that too often is omitted or marginalized in discussions of Cental America and Latin
America, as well as the Caribbean. The Garifuna were formerly called the 'Black Carib' in the
antiropological literature. Many Garifuna people objected to the term, and have now finly
succ      in getting others to call them what they call themselves. Belizean Gaifuna provide
a very useful empirical case for exploring:
1) the entangling of racial, ethnic and natonal aspects of social identity,
2) the confusion of conventional terminology, demographic terminology and
anthropological terminology,
3) how 1 and 2 combine to make 'hard facts' such as census data much less
'objective' and 'reliable' than they at first appear.2
As we know here in the United States, having most recently transformed "Afro-
Americans" into "African Americans" in -ordinary discourse, a rose by any other name does not
always smell as sweet. In other words, it does make a difference what we call one another, our
choice of tenninology may have far-reaching consequences. For example, I have always
thought that the tern "Negro" while viewed by some as an advance over the term "colored,"
remained tainted by its hapless similarity to the pejorative tenns "nigger" and even worse
"nigra." In a similar vein in the case of the Gaif una, the term "Carib" bore a comparably
unfortunate similarity to the derisive terms "Kerob" and "Kerobee."
Interestingly, these terms of contempt in Belize were wielded most often not across a
racial gulf as they have been in the U.S. and elsewhere, but rather among Black Belizeans, the
Afro-Indian Garifuna and the African American Creoles. In the Belizean setting, these
corrosive epithets etched differences within the Afro-Belizean racial category.3 In the process
C. L. Macklin, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
KAS Papers
of evolving more comfortable, more autonomously inspired modes of reference, however, the
term "Garifuna" obscures-for the casual observer at least-one of the most significant
aspects of the Garifuna identity: namely their descent racially, culturally, and linguistically
from the Carib Indians frst encountered by Columbus upon his arrival in the Caribbean 500
years ago.
The Garifuna are the most striking living legacy of the Amerindian population of the
Caribbean to have survived into the late twentieth century. The so-called Island Carib Indians
assume extraordinary importance because they were among the first of the First Americans
encountered by the Europeans. How is it that most of us do not know that at least 200,000
people are still spealing that Amerindian language throughout the Americas five hundred years
later? Why are the Garifuna so often overlooked in our discussions of Native America? Can
this oversight be related to the marginalization of Belize in regional Latin American discourse?
What does this tell us? Where is this leading? What can we conclude from this discussion of:
1) the omission of the Garifuna in the consideration of indigenous Americans?
2) the marginalization of Belize in Central and Latin America? 4
Do we dare at this point to "play the race card?" Is this simply about Belize being
historically a Black country and the Garifuna appearing Afican American? I would respond to
my own question with a qualified "yes." Yes, because race in the Americas is always an issue,
whether we want to admit it or not, and yes, because the Blackness of Belize makes it atypical
in the region and makes the Garifuna unusual among Native Americans. But I would qualify
this strong affirmative response, because this treatment of Belize and the Garifuna is neither
simply nor solely about race in some essential or absolute sense. It is a much more complex,
dynamic, pervasive, and stubborn snarl.
Demographic Data: Playing the Numbers
Let's look at some statistics that illustrate this vexing problem. I am drawing my
figures from apparently 'progressive' journals that take seriously issues of self-determination,
sovereignty, individual's rights and people's rights. We shall see, however, that even in such
publications the attempt to discover the facts by examining demographic statistics-the
numbers-is more often part of the problem than it is part of the solution. The two most
recent editions of Report on the Amenricas (Volume 25, Numbers 3 and 4) concern themselves
respectively with the region's indigenous population-25(3)-and its peoples of African
descent-25(4). Interestingly enough, the issue entitled "The First Nations 1492-1992" has a
red cover, the next issue entitled "The Black Americas 1492-1992" has a black cover. This
color contrast also highlights another important distinction between the two issues. The
designation of 'first nations' refers to history, politics and sovereignty among other things.
The designation 'black Americas' appears to invoke a historically and culturally
decontextualized racial or color category and little else.
2
Macklin
Legacy of the Garifuna of Belize
Tbe r       percentages of native peoples range from a high in Bolivia of 71.2 percent
toa low in Uruguay of zero. Belize's Indian population is listed as 9.1 percent (Varese
1992:16). These figures are even more revealing when compared with the equivalent figures
for the black population. The report on "The Black Americas"-25(4)-contains a caveat
corning percentages of black population which the author suggests can only be estimated
within a range for the following reasons:
Statistics on the Black population in most countries of the Americas are by no
means based on uniform criteria. The undifferentiated use of terms like Black,
Afro-American, Creole, Mulatto, Gaifuna, Black-Indian, African Negro, Afro-
East Indian, Zambo, Bush Negro, Antillean Negro, and Black-Carib can lead to
serious discrepancies. Brazil's census for example, lists the black population
at 5.84 percent, while the Britannica Yearbook places it at 33 percent, with
similarly drastic gaps for Panama and the Dominican Republic. (Oviedo
1992: 19)5
The previous issue of this same journal ranks the Brazilian native population at 0.2
pecent (325,000) without feeling a comparable need to warn us about the unreliability of
these particular statistics (Varese 1992:16). Again we note a disparity in the treatment of
demographic features in the "red" issue and in the "black" issue.6
The overall figures for black population range from a high in Haiti of 100 percent
(some 'white' Haiians might be srled to discover this!) to a low in countries like Mexico
(0.5 percent), or Chile and Guatemala where "the presence of Blacks is acknowledged but no
figures are given," or Argentina where the vagares of census and conventional categories have
obscured the African presence altogether (Oviedo 1992:19). Significantly Guatemala's
indigenous population is listed at 60.3 percent (Varese 1992:16)-does this include Garifuna?
In the 9.1 percent Belizean indigenous population figures-which appear to be drawn from the
1960 censusl- Garifuna were clearly omitted They make up almost half of the 17 percent
indigenous people reportd in the statistics presented in the important issue of Cultural
Survival on "Cental America and the Caribbean" (Palacio 1988: 49). According to the
figures used by Davidson and Counce, who have devised a map of Central America showing
the distribution of Indians in the region (1988:38-39), out of a grand total of 3,100,000
Indians in Central America, 23,500 of these Indians live in Belize. This includes 11,000
Garifuna, 4,000 Kekchi, 2,700 Mopan, and 5,700 Yucatec. The head of the Caribbean
Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP) claims an additional 1,000 Garifuna in Belize ten
pages later in the same joumal (Palacio 1988: 49). The thousands of Garifuna living in the
Guatemalan town of Livingston make up the bulk of the 4,500 Garifuna in Guatemala
reported in Davidson and Counce's figures (1988: 38). However, they are not represented in
Oviedo's Guatemalan data at all despite the explicit discussion of ters referrng specifically
to the Garifuna.
We can see here exactly how the concern over terminology that began our discussion
becomes even more consequential when it is extended to the collection and analysis of census
and other demographic data. In addition, certain groups of people, like Gaifuna, who fit into
neither the conventional nor the scholarly assumptions underlying our notions of identity also
Nos. 75-76
3
KAS Papers
have difficulty being accurately represented in demographic data. In fact, this specific example
highlights some of the general problems bedeviling this material and mentioned at the outset
of this discussion. Yet, it is possible at least to begin to untangle this snarl a bit.
Untangling the Snarl: Race, Language, Culture, and the Rest
One of the fundamental tenets of American anftropology was introduced over fifty years
ago by Franz Boas (1940). His basic injunction is to remember the importance of
distinguishing rigorously among these three: race, language, and culture. On the
quincentenary of Columbus's incursion into the so-called "New World," we must be mindful
of these distinctions as we look for the legacies of the First Americans among the societies,
peoples, languages and cultures of the late twentieth century. Even as analysts, our own
schoLarly images of the "other" are too often hobbled by conventional images which assume
simple and unproblematic relationships among the race of the "other," the culture of the
"other," and the language of the "other." When the nationality of the "other" is added to this
list of relationships, our t  as scholars becomes even more daunting.
This confusion continues today despite Boas' recommendation. The scientific notions
of these distinctions-race, language, culture (or ethnicity), and nationality-are positively
protean, the definitions of the terms frequently fuzzy.7 In her 1988 review article, "A Class
Act: The Race to Nation Across Ethnic Terrain," Brackette Williams notes the pronounced
confusion over the scholarly and analytic uses as well as the conventional lay uses of such
terms as race, ethnicity, nationality, and class. Banton also notes a similar leakage between
analytic and folk conceptions of race in his Racial Consciousness (1988: 1-16). In The Ethnic
Origins of Nations (1986), Anthony Smith explores the epistemological miscegenation
between ethnicity and nationality. One of the lessons this Garifuna and Belizean material can
teach us is that as analysts we must be able to distinguish between contrasting features of
race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or region (for example) in our analyses while at the same
time attending to the way that non-specialists insist on using these terms in a much less
rigorous fashion.8 In other words, we must account for conventional lay conceptions and the
behavior produced by these conceptions while simultaneously remaining aware of the
important formal and substantive analytic distinctions that make these related aspects of
identity far from identical.
I propose that we look at the Garifuna people as modern day representatives of
indigenous Americans, and that we explore the source of the consternation engendered by the
phenomenon of Black Americans claiming to be among the autochthonous Americans. Some
of the questions we must ask include: Why has so little attention been focused on the
interaction of Africans and indigenous peoples in Latin America and throughout the Westem
hemisphere? Why do we segregate our discussions of race and ethnicity in the Americas so
that the nature of ethnic or cultural differences witiin the African American racial category has
received such scant attention? Why has the full significance of Creolization-rguably the
single most distinctive and pervasive aspect of all American cultures-been so conscientiously
overlooked? Obviously I am raisng more questions than I can answer in this brief discussion,
but I think there is still much value in askdng new and hard questions. It will take all of us
4
Maclclin
Legacy of the Garnfuna of Belize
much time and thought to come up with mutually satisfying answers that also make sense of
ourd
Garifuna are a tr atial Afro-Indian people dpersed  ghout Nrh America and
Middle America, but concentrated along the Atlantic coast of Central America, the Caribbean
islands of St. Vincent and Dominica, and several communities in the United States. Of a oal
population between 200,000 and 300,000, about two-thirds live in the Central American and
Caribbean homelands and approximately one-third live in the United States.9 Phenotypically,
most Garifuna appear Black, but their language and culture proclaim their descent from the
original Island Carib Indians encountered by Columbus. A spokesperson for the Caribbean
Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP) points out that:
Many people assume that the indigenous people in the Caribbean were
completely wiped out during the invasion and conquest. However, the
populations of Guyana, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Belize contain thousands
of indigenous people in addition to many thousands of mixed ancestry.
(Palacio 1988)
The COEP was formed by representatives from these four countries "to help coordinate the
activities of indigenous people of the EngLish-speaking Caribbean. More specifically, it will
inventory information on the culturl aspects of indigenous groups of the region; mobilize
groups at the local level ... and establish a communication network" (Wilk 1988: 44).
Ignorance about Caribbean indigenous peoples is especially unfortunate because when we
eradicate these people from our discussions we repeat Columbus's crime. Speaking generally
about indigenous people throughout the Americas, the North American Congress on Latin
America echoes the sentiments of the COIP.
Common wisdom holds that Native American cultures are relics of the past,
destined to survive only as museum pieces. Underlying this unfortunate
meeting point of many on the Left and Right is the belief that Indians are
bound to abandon their ethnicity as modernity spreads its tentacles into the
outer reaches of the Western world, eradicating the rural, the peasant, the
illiterate.... Indigenous peoples have not been assimilated nor have they died
out. Nearly forty million are alive today, by most estimates significantly
more than in 1492.... Native peoples are hardly passive. In 1990 a
nationwide indigenous uprising paralyzed Ecuador. That same year in Canada,
Indian activists blocked a constitutional accord and used arned confrontation
and civil disobedience to thrust their demands into the center of national
debate. [The authors go on to mention that effective Native American
resistance movements have also been launched in Bolivia, Guatemala,
Nicaragua, Colombia, and Brazil.] Hardly irrelevant to modem life, these
movements may be articulating the political struggles of the future. (Report
on the Americas 25 (3): 12)
5
Nos. 75-76
KAS Papers
Although we must acknowledge the destruction and subsequent absence of large numbers of
indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and many other parts of the Americas, we cannot
subsequently proceed to ignore the First Americans or their lasting impact in contemporary
discussions of North, South, and Cental America, or the Caribbean. Moreover, the example
of the Garifuna shows we must also be open-minded and wide-ranging in our search for the
lasting impact of these First Americans. We cannot simply round up "the usual suspects"!
The Lesson of the Garifuna
My work on the construction of Garifuna identity has revealed how members of this
dispersed community have fashioned their identity in ways that have assured the viability of
that identity for cenuries and over great distances. The focus of my research is the symbolic
construction of identity in both religious and secular ritual settings. One of the foci of my
research is an ethnic holiday called Garifuna Settlement Day that falls into the category of so-
called "invented traditions." This fifty year old event has become an important national holiday
in Belize where it originated, but has also spawned numerous offshoots, including North
American celebrations. My work includes comparisons of the Los Angeles and Belizean
holidays. During these Settlement Day celebrations, Garifuna assert their claims as
indigenous Americans, diasporan people, African Americans, and full-fledged citizens of the
various nations in which they reside.
I can only touch on the substance of this research here, but will try to detail some of
the insights I have gained during my experience with Garifuna people, because these examples
provide potent correctives to some of the oversights of Latin American and Western
hemisphere research For example, my analysis of identity has necessarily evolved to include
eclecticism, dynamism, and transnationalism (Macklin n.d.). It is especially difficult to
understand the process of identity construction among an Afro-Indian people because our
theoretical conceptualization is often handcuffed by an inability to acknowledge blended or
syncretized identities as legitimate and authentic. In addition, for both Native Americans and
African Americans in many countries throughout the Americas, legal definitions of racial and
ethnic classification have also relied on percentages of identity and concepts of pure-
bloodedness or full-bloodedness (resulting in notions such as the one-drop definition; labels
such as octoroons, quadroons, mulattoes, and Black versus White Creoles).
Just like the blended Afro-Indian quality of their identity, transnationalism challenges
the usual conceptualiations of identity. The construction of a truly tansnatonal identity also
proves too slippery for the usual analytic grappling hooks. As a diasporan and transnational
people, the Garifuna live in different polities in North America, Central America and the
Caribbean, but embrace a shared heritage that tanscends these national boundaries. All
Garifuna claim a common orgin on the island of St. Vincent in the early seventeenth century.
Belizean Garifuna migrants in Los Angeles, for example, acknowledge their affiliation with
other Garifuna from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala through formal and informal
associations. Ihis transnational staddling of political borders has proved to be a wellspring
of vitality for Garifuna people.10 For analysts, however, transnationalism is often a problem
too difficult to contain within bounded, territorialized definitions of identity and culture (see
6
Macklin
Legacy of the Garifuna of Belize
Cultural Anthropology Volume 7, Number 1). Once theory begins to tussle with
transnationalism in a sustained manner, however, that same transnationalism so debilitating to
neat theoretical constructs may eventually prove to be as much a 'fountain of youth' for our
analysis as it has been for people like the Garifuna.
I have also had to look at the complex relationships between language, culture, and race
exemplified by the Garifuna. The Garifuna language is so similar to that of the Island Carib
speech recorded in the seventeenth century that "with the proper phonetic adjustments"
contemporary Garifuna were able to understand a dictionary of Dominican Carib recorded by a
French priest between 1635-1653 (Taylor 1951: 38). Culturally-most strikingly in the area
of the technologies of fishing and manioc preparation-the legacy of the Amerindian ancestors
of the Garifuna is equally irrefutable. In Belize Garifuna also share with Mayans, the other
recognized indigenous population, lands set aside under the 'reserve' policy.11 Yet Native
Americans, African Americans and European Americans have all objected to the inclusion of
groups like the Garifuna in the category of indigenous Americans. In most cases these
objections entail some direct or indirect recourse to race, and the sheer blackness of Garfuna
people proves to be a stumbling block that cannot always be removed either by their
Amerindian language. or their legal and political treatment as indigenous, or the Amerindian
elements of their culture.
The Lesson of Belize
Belize is striking in its own right, because of its racial and ethnic complexity as well as
its self-conscious construction of and celebration of an explicitly multicultural nation. There
are numerous examples of the forthright official Belizean promotion of pluralism that contrast
sharply with the more assimilationist history of official U.S. attitudes toward diversity. The
Belizean policy on diversity may also be compared to that of her Central American neighbors,
although here the contrast is not quite as sharp as with the United States. One of the most
obvious contrasts springs from Belize's British colonial past and its history as a Black
country. Thus the ideology of "mestizaje" must deal not only with the Belizean Amerindian
population as well as Spanish speaking (mestizo) Belizeans, but, in this setting, racial
blending and pluralism must also include the other important ethnic and racial elements in a
total population of well under two hundred thousand (see Figure 1: Belize Population by
Ethnic Groups).
Nos. 75-76
7
100%
4 0%
35%
3 0%
2 5%
20%
15%
10%
5 %
Uo     0C      0       co     co
*_     N)              C?>    >      *cl     C      0
CD   ~        ~~~~~ t    i1     cn            CD!
~~  CuCU  Cu~    O      0 Cu   C)
.C .0
Cu  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~f
Figure 1: Belize Population by Ethnic Group*
* Since I have not yet obtained the results of the 1990 census, these figures are based
on Bolland's figures from the 1980 census (Bolland 1986) and what I believe to be reasonable
adjustments reflecting the demographic trends of the past ten years. The "White" category
includes Belize's traditionally isolated German-speaking Mennonite communities as well as
very fair-skinned Belizeans who might be differently classified in categorizations such as ours
in the United States. The Mestizo category includes not only the descendants of long term
Spanish-spealing residents of Belize, but also the recent Spanish-spealing arrivals fleeing the
conflicts in neighboring Central American countries (especially El Salvador).
The new Belizean capital, Belmopan, makes liberal use of Mayan monumental
architectural themes and patterns in a manner similar to the Mexican use of Mayan motifs,
especially in museum architecture. In Belize, as in other parts of Cental America, the
8
Macklin
KAS Papers
Legacy of the Gartfuna of Belize
glorification of the ancestral Maya does not yet necessarily reflect any corresponding elevation
of contemporary Belizean Maya. Statues were commissioned representing the five (!) major
ethnic groups of Belize and installed on the road that runs from the international airport into
Belize City just barely in time to welcome visiting dignitaries arriving for the tenth
anniversary of independence in 1991. Belizeans explicitly compared these figures to similar
ones in Mexico. Of course, with representations of Mestizo, Mayan, Creole, Garifuna, and
East Indian Belizeans, international visitors are already encountering a veritable swarm of
statuary even without the inclusion of the numerous other Belizean ethnic and racial groups
such as the Chinese, 'Arabs,' or Mennonites! If all the different Belizean groups were
represented, this gaggle of sculptures would probably force the traffic off the roadl
The concept of racial mixing in Belize must include the African component along with
the Amerindian 4nd Spanish elements; the cpncept of srelization would be invoked more
frequently than that of mestizaje. For Belize, however, mixing is also used to describe the
very nature of the particular Belizean brand of pluralism itself, as well as the romantic and
conjugal relationships among contemporary men and women from distinct Belizean groups,
and the allegedly unique character of Belizean social life and interaction. Many Belizeans
believe this mxixng process is accelerating.
In addition, since three of these five major Belizean groups are of blended identity by
definition-Creole, Garifuna, and Mestizo-the quality of being mixed, blended, or syncretized
can metaphorically stand for Belizean nationality. Moreover, any one of these mixed groups,
their language, or cultural heritage, can (at least potentially) metonymically stand for the
whole country as well. For example, the official motto of the 1981 independence celebrations
was the Creole English phrase "Ya da fu we"-basically a down home Belizean version of
"this land is our land." The use of Creole provided a point of contrast with the Queen's
English and encoded the dissolution of colonial status. Interestingly, although the roots of
Creole are specific to a particular Belizean ethnic group and emphasize African and British
heritages, Creole's status as an informal lingua franca superseded the specific provenance of
the language. Thus "Ya da fu we" becomes a folksy, generically, authentically Belizean way
of asserting sovereign claims to territorial integrity through the medium-the Belizean Creole
language-as well as the message that this is their country12.
Obviously such official pronouncements only go so far, and some would argue that
they simply obscure the real inequities that do structure Belizean society. Nevertheless, even
these official pronouncements contrast with the United States' history of institutional racism
and genocide, and ambivalence about pluralism. There are also significant contrasts with other
Central American nations, although here the rhetoric, at least, often acknowledges mestizaje
more explicitly than the U.S. attitude toward racial admixture. In addition to the previously
mentioned distinctions between Belize and some other Central American nations-the
inclusion of African elements, the greater number of acknowledged distinct groups, the more
faithful espousal of a Belizean identity with a mixed identity-Belizeans explicitly describe
themselves and their country as more tolerant and less racist than other Central American
neighbors.
For example, Garifuna and Maya Belizeans who frequently have ties of kinship and
friendship with their counterparts on the Guatemalan side of the border, are among the first to
detail the relative advantages of their status as Belizeans. Much of the opposition to
9
Nos. 75-76
1K-AS Papers
Guatemalan irredentism came not only from fears about threats to Belizean sovereignty and
self-determination, but also from the perception that Guatemala was marred by a climate of
brutal racial intolerance and discrimination. The specter of Guatemalan domination was seen
as especially disastrous for Black Belizeans who feared that the Guatemalan mistreatment of
Amerindias foreboded even worse prospects for people of African descent.13
In newly independent Belize, the sins of institutionalized racism and genocide are
assigned to the era of colonial history and British and/or European control. The blame for
contemporary legacies of these transgressions also redounds to the erstwhile colonial masters,
and one of the most im ant tasks of the "new" nation of Belize is to right these wrongs and
heal the wounds. Both the official policies of Belize and the level of diversity-so many
distinctions of an ethimc, racial, religious, regional, and linguistic nature contained within
such a small population-create a national setting that contrasts in many important ways with
Belize's Latin American and North American neighbors.
Conclusions
The Belizean Garifuna example has exculpated certain of the 'etic' sins of our
investigation of the identity of the First Americans by revealing how vital it is to tease out
race, culture, language, and nationality so that each is a discrete unit of analysis. The
inclusion of the Afro-Indian Garifuna also corrects the myopic habit of omitting African
Americans when we look at Native America and at the processes of racial and cultural
syncretism in Latin America-whether we focus on mestizaje or creolization. The Belizean
example also provides important points of contrast and similarity to the ways in which other
Latin American countries handle these African and Amerindian identities in their national
policies. How significant are these findings to issues of broader concern in the region? Is
Belize so atypical that its marginalization or omission in the regional Central and Latin
American discourse can be justified? Are the Garifuna so unique that they have nothing to
tach us?
At first glance the Garifuna of Belize might seem unlikely candidates to represent
typically Latin American themes with their "odd" amalgamated non-white identity, their so
recently independent, relentlessly plural home nation, their unusual mixed, syncretized, and
transnational heritage. Yet for exactly those "odd" reasons, I would argue that the Garifuna
and Belize can be more productively viewed as prototypically Latin American rather than
atypical. They embody the processes of culture change, culture contact, and culture creation
that are truly the hallmark of the Latin American region. Belizean Garifuna are unusual
primarily in the accessibility they provide in documenting these processes, not in their
manifestation of the processes themselves. The addition of African Americans to a discussion
which in Latin America usually concerns itself with the interplay among indigenous
(Amerindian), European, and mestizo elements must come as a welcome and appropriate
acknowledgment of the impotance of including peoples of African descent in our analyses (see
Bryce-Lapor 1992; Whitten 1976; Whitten and Torres 1992).
These same cultural processes that give us Belize, Garifuna, and Belizean Garifuna may
sometimes be harder to detect, but are widespread throughout the Caribbean, Central America,
and all the Americas. Until we begin to acknowledge the fundamentally eclectic, syncretic
10
Macklin
Legacy of the Garifuna of Belize
nature of the entire Western hemisphere, we will be impeded in our understanding of the most
interesting phenomena in this most interesting and truly novel "New World."
Notes
1 In this paper, the following terms are used interchangeably: 'First Americans,' 'Native
Americans,' 'indigenous Americans,' 'Amerindians,' 'Indians,' 'autochthonous Americans,'
and 'first nations.' This egregious lack of rigor reflects both the plethora of terms used in
everyday language as well as scholarly language, and the politically charged environment
which assures that just as each of these terms has virtues which recommend it, each also has
flaws and potendally negative implications for the groups it is used to describe. I intend no
disrespect in my use of these various terms, and apologize in advance to anyone who may
find any of the terms offensive, or who may prefer terminology not even included in this
casual survey.
2 This paper is based on long-term fieldwork conducted among Garifuna in Belize and
among Belizean Garifuna in Los Angeles. I began in 1971 with an investigation of aspects of
traditional Garifuna religion (Macklin 1972), and have come to include the investigation of
ritual and symbolic dimensions of identity formation and transnationalism. The many
organizations that supported this research are acknowledged in Macklin 1972, 1986. A
University of California at Berkeley Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship has also facilitated
the preparation of this article.
3 This discussion reflects the type of discourse that prevails when Afro-Belizean racial
solidarity is at its nadir, but changes over time and space produce a highly variable degree of
Black Belizean racial identification. The aus of the Black Belizean racial category is acually
quite complicated. In Belize, this potentially unifying racial identification must compete
with crosscutting distinctions of ethnic, religious, linguistic, regional, and class differences
that are encompassed by an Afro-Belizean categorization. In addition, these distinctions
provide points of similarity with other non-Black Belizeans. Garifuna, for instance, share
regional affinities with other non-Black groups in southern Belize such as Kekchi and Mopan
Maya, who can embrace a common Amerindian heritage with these Afro-Indians. Garifuna
also share a religious afflliation with other non-Black Catholic Belizeans such as the Yucatec
Maya and 'Spanish' (mestizo) Belizeans. Recent demographic trends-especially racially
specific patterns of in-migration and out-migration--have also changed the Belizean picture
somewhat. As the proportion of Blacks in the total Belizean population appears to decline, to
a certain degree, the sense of racial identification among the remaining Afro-Belizeans may be
strengthened.
4 The Caribbean is likewise frequently omitted and excluded in the Latin American region.
Similarly, the other Americas are often omitted from U.S. discussions of what is American.
5 Please note that three of the troubling terms-Garifuna, Black-Carib, and Black-Indian-
all refer specifically to the people who are the subjects of this paper. Garifuna people provide
the kind of real world examples which regularly and immediately expose the deficiencies in
our 'scholarly,' 'objective,' 'theoretical,' and/or 'scientific' approaches!
Nos. 75-76
11
1K-AS Papers
6 It should be noted that Varese and Oviedo show some sensitivity to the contextualized
social and cultural aspects of identity that may conflict with sometimes Eurocentric theory and
assumptions. The particulars of demographic data appear much more problematic in the
presentaion of the African Ameican material, however.
7   Cultural differences are being equd with ethnicity or ethnic differences for the purposes
of this discussion. While there is most often significant overlap, in practice these tenrs may
be used to refer to quite disinct phenomena.
8 Obviously there are other significant aspects of identity omitted from this list-most
notably class and gender. While I cannot deny the crucial importance of these factors, I am
unable to deal with these additional elements here.
9   Ihese figures are compiled from estimats made by Davidson and Counce (1988), Palacio
(n.d.), and Gonzalez (1979).
10 Obviously, the extensive migration involved in the creation of a transnational identity
also enails real pitfalls and threats to the integrity of any such group. I do not mean to
minimize these hazards. My aim here is to part company with the characterization of
transnational communities as precarious and fragile, and look instead towards the supple
resiliency, diverse options, and sheer potential embodied in these communites.
11 This set aside program is in many fornate and unfortunate ways similar to the United
States policy of reservations for American Indian peoples.
12 These claims of 'authenticity' reflect the perceptions and use of the concept as I observed
it in 1981 among Belizans during the independence celebrations. At this point, I am not
tackling the thorny analytic problems of authenticity and national identity that must be
handled in anthropological analysis, although I hope to wrestle with this very formidable
opponent in future worL
13 Ihis would, of course, include Creole as well as Gaifuna Belizeans.
References Cited
Banton, Michael
1988   Racial Consciousness. New York: Longman
Boas, Franz
1940   Race, Language, and Culture. New York: Macmillan
Bryce-Laporte, Roy
1992   African Presence on the Central American Isthmus. Paper delivered at the National
Museum of American History conference "Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Historical
Perspectives on the African Diaspora." Washington, D.C.: February 7, 1992
12
Macklin
Legacy of the Ganfuna of Belize
Davidson, William and Melanie Counce
1988    Mapping the Distribution of Indians in Central America. Cultural Survival 13(3): 37-
40.
Gonzalez, Nancie
1979    Garifuna Settlement in New York: A New hFntier. International Migration Review
XIII: 255-263
Mackin, Catherine
1972    Aspects of Black Carib Religion. Honors thesis, Harvard University.
1986    Crucibles of Identity: Ritual and Symbolic Dimensions of Garifuna Identity. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.
n.d.    How Identity Straddles Borders
North American Congress on Latin America
1992    The Survival Nations. Report on the Americas 25 (3): 12.
Oviedo, Rodolfo Monge
1992    Are We or Aren't We? Report on the Americas 25(4): 19.
Palacio, Joseph 0.
1988    Caribbean Indigenous Peoples Journey Towards Self-Discovery. Cultural Survival
13(3): 49-51.
n.d.    Garifun Inmigrants in Los Angeles-attempts at self-improvement. Forthcoming in
Belizean Studies.
Smith, Anthony D.
1986    The Ethnic Origins of Nations. New York: Basil Blackwell.
Taylor, Douglas MacRae
1951    The Black Carib of British Honduras. New York: Wenner-Gren.
Varese, Stefano
1992 Think Locally, Act Globally. Report on the Americas, 25(3):13-17.
Whitten, Norman
1976    LAAG Contributions to Afro-American ethnohistory in Latin America and the
Caribbean. Washington: Latin American Anthropology Group.
Whitten, Nornman and Arlene Tonres
1992    Blackness in the Americas. Report on the Americas 25(4): 16-27.
Wilc, Richard and Mac Chapin
1988    Belize: Land Tenure and Etnicity. Cukural Survival 13(3): 41-45.
Williams, Brackette
1989    A Class Act: Anthropology and the Race to Nation Across Ethic Terrain. Annual
Reviews of Anthropology 18: 401-444.
13
Nos. 75-76